Tuesday, February 26, 2008

chugga chugga chugga

My friend who I haven't really talked to since I moved away from Salt Lake City is thinking about starting a blog about industrial music. He asked for suggestions. I suggested he travel into the past, to a time when industrial music was good, and report on his adventures. I doubt if he has the technological know-how to build a time machine. So the purpose of this entry is to dissuade him from blogging about the current state of events of industrial music. It would only make me depressed. This blog entry is the only entry that ever needs to be written about industrial music. It is the final nail on the coffin of industrial music blogging.

I like industrial music. Although it sometimes gets really boring because aside from a band called Carphax Files who I know personally, all the other current bands that I have heard are crappy, watered-down copies of their predecessors. Some of them are really good for one song, but then you get all excited and think, I have discovered a new industrial band that doesn't suck, and listen to another song and it sounds exactly like the first song and get very disappointed and listen to an entire album in hopes of being as impressed by the other songs as you were by the first song, in hopes of the other songs not sounding exactly like the first song, but you just end up disappointed again and kill yourself by running naked through a barb wire factory while humming Wumpscut's Soylent Green.

So the reason it sometimes gets boring is because I have to listen to CDs that I bought in high school. I graduated from high school in 1997.

Not only am I often bored, but I am also often disappointed. This is because I never really took care of my CDs. Many of them are scratched.

Before I listed to industrial music, I listened to rap. I am not surprised by my migration to the new genre. They are very similar. They have the same primary audience: angry, white teenagers. They are both a form of electronic music.

There is something mysterious about the name, industrial music. I remember the first time I heard it. My friend told me that Nine Inch Nails was industrial music. It made me very confused, but it was a little exciting to learn of its existence. I never knew there was music that sounded like this. It was like those two words tore down a brick wall, unleashing a flood of awesomeness.

And I kept finding new stuff. And I loved it. Bands like Skinny Puppy, Mentallo and the Fixer, Wumpscut, and Leatherstrip were such exciting discoveries. It was exciting to go to concerts in New York City.

I am going to say 'exciting' a lot because it was all very exciting at the time. I was very excited. I haven't felt this excited about music in many, many years. I haven't felt this excited about anything else for a couple of them.

But there is nothing to get excited about anymore. Exciting bands that have persevered through the years are middle-aged and no longer exciting. The last Skinny Puppy album was not exciting. It was awful-awful.

And there is nothing else that ever ever ever needs to be said about industrial music. Unless someone can recommend me a band that actually has more than one song that I'll like. I don't think my friend is up to the task. He's too busy breeding rats or something.

1 comment:

I wish I could help you. I was into industrial music in high school in the latter half of the 90's, too. Interesting. You're right about the similarities between industrial and rap. Just the label "industrial" implies hard, cold, gritty, powerful, etc. I've never been into rap, but I've moved toward ambient music, possibly because I'm getting older and sometimes need dark music that is quiet as well. Robert Rich's A Quiet Resting Place does just this for me. I've been a big fan of Nine Inch Nails since high school. Trent Reznor's lyrics aren't always very good, but I almost always like the music he makes, especially the instrumentals. I don't know of any "industrial" bands now. Most of the new music all sounds the same to me anymore: someone screaming/whining/growling. I think maybe I'm just getting old already.

About Me

I wrote It Came from Below the Belt, My Heart Said No, But the Camera Crew Said Yes!, Sorry I Ruined Your Orgy, and Rico Slade Will Fucking Kill You. I edit a literary journal called Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens. I like cheese. I am lactose intolerant.